Technical Field
The present invention relates to a method and a testing system for testing and/or testing multiple spatially distributed protective devices, which are used to protect an energy supply network (e.g. a high-voltage network).
Background Art
Protective devices for energy supply networks comprise one or more protective units, which monitor process variables (e.g. current, voltage and also switching states of e.g. circuit breakers or states of e.g. transformers) of the energy supply network and analyse them for faults. If the protective device detects a fault in a protection area of the energy supply network assigned to it by this analysis, the protective device outputs switching commands in order to activate a circuit breaker in particular, with which the detected fault is isolated by cutting off the corresponding part of the energy supply network. To do this, the circuit breaker interrupts the flow of energy of the energy supply network in that the circuit breaker interrupts e.g. a line of the energy supply network or the energy flow on one side of a transformer. Moreover, some protective devices and protective units are able after a certain pause time to output switching commands in order to close the previously opened circuit breaker again. If the fault is no longer present when the circuit breaker is closed, the protective device or protective unit returns to normal monitoring of the energy supply network. If on the other hand the fault should still be present on closing the circuit breaker, the protective device or the protective unit recognises this, so that the circuit breaker is immediately reopened by the protective device or protective unit.
An energy supply network is understood in particular to mean a network comprising lines that have voltages of more than 10 kV among them. The energy supply network meant here comprises energy transmission networks with voltages of over 100 kV on the one hand and so-called energy distribution networks with voltages of over 10 kV (e.g. of 20 kV) on the other hand. This can be alternating voltage (e.g. 50 Hz) or direct voltage. A circuit breaker is configured to interrupt an active electrical connection of such a high-voltage line. A circuit breaker can switch high overload currents and short-circuit currents (up to 800 kA), therefore, and must be able to hold these for a predetermined timespan and switch them off again.
The testing of these protective devices is carried out according to the prior art mostly by testing of the individual protective device in an isolated test. Proof of the correct system behaviour, i.e. the correct interaction of all components (especially protective devices) is normally provided according to the prior art not by a function test but by a review of the corresponding technical documents.